What Really Makes America Great

We hold this truth to be self-evident

“What’s great about America?” I asked my 9-year-old daughter.

“Well, we have freedom.”

“What does that mean?”

“We have freedom of religion and other stuff.”

And with scarcely a pause, she added, “And we have great froyo.”

Frozen yogurt. Apparently that’s what makes America great. Not our civil liberties, rule of law, tremendous diversity, nor our economic and military might. It’s frozen yogurt. It’s a self-evident truth that somehow didn’t make it into the Declaration of Independence.

“Oh, and we have rights.”

So there’s that, too. Whew.

Look, I like some frozen yogurt once in a while, but I don’t think it’s at the top of the list in terms of things I like about America. I haven’t done the research, but I’m fairly certain that numerous other countries have excellent frozen yogurt, and quite frankly, I find straight-up ice cream or gelato or frozen custard better.

It’s naïve, of course, to think that America is perfect. The authors of our Constitution recognized as much, stating that one of its main purposes was to “form a more perfect Union”—not a perfect one. I don’t see our country or the world through star-spangled lenses.

But what we have is special—very special—and unique. Preserving it and improving it is worth the continual effort; it’s worth defending.

Unity Through Structure

The American Constitution is the foundation for much of the structure that we find in the country from its three branches of government to the Bill of Rights. It provides a structure for laws and law-making, among other things. But a major—yet underappreciated—feature of the Constitution is that it’s a framework for unity.

That’s a big part of the argument that Yuval Levin proposes and explains in his new book, American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again. I haven’t finished it yet, but this idea of unity is one that I find compelling—and worth thinking about a little bit around July 4, when we Americans celebration Independence Day. Here’s Levin talking about it in an episode of EconTalk:

And as Levin writes,

The key framers of the system hoped that the fact of the multiplicity of American life did not have to mean that Americans would be irredeemable alienated from one another, embittered an in conflict. They did not deny the reality of the diversity of interests and opinions in our polity, but they refused to believe that unity was impossible or not worth pursuing. Rather, the system they constructed presumes an idea of unity that takes such multiplicity for granted and attenuates disunity through common action. (American Covenant, p. 35)

Alongside Unity, Community

In organizational psychology, my corner of social science, one of the methods through which groups overcome conflict is by re-emphasizing superordinate goals. Namely, if a people are quarrelling within a team, it can be helpful—among other things—to remind the group what they are trying to achieve together and how they might go about pursuing those goals.

For Americans, knowing and understanding foundational documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution could help in a similar way.

If you don’t want to read the Declaration of Independence yourself, you could listen to former President John F. Kennedy read it here:

Furthermore, the notion of community matters. We are not meant to be isolated creatures. We live and work and rejoice and suffer in many ways together.

Community is one of those deceptively tough ideas to define. Yet the late sociologist Amitai Etzioni provides one definition that I find helpful. He wrote that:

Community is a combination of two elements: A) A web of affect-laden relationships among a group of individuals, relationships that often crisscross and reinforce one another (rather than merely one-on-one or chainlike individual relationships). B) A measure of commitment to a set of shared values, norms, and meanings, and a shared history and identity in short, to a particular culture.[i]

The first part of that means that communities require people who have relationships with each other in a sense through groups. For example, you likely have friends who know other friends of yours and who are friends with each other. You’re in a big mix of relationships; not just person A knowing person B who knows person C. Instead, persons A, B, and C all have some sort of connection with each other person.

The second part is about shared culture, one that comes about through a shared understanding of what’s important. That’s what comes to my mind when I think about our country: its founding, its present, and its future.

It’s not an easy thing to preserve or maintain. But it’s worth trying.

Maybe one place to start isn’t by sitting down and studying our nation’s founding documents. Although that’d be spectacular and I highly recommend it, another place to start might be by nurturing and participating in activities that bring people together.

That’s one reason why I enjoy summer in my area of northeast Ohio. There’s plenty to do, and one of the best things to do is to attend the family-friendly outdoor concerts featuring the world-renowned Cleveland Orchestra, among others.

You get to bring your own food and beverages (including the adult variety), hang out, and listen to some excellent music. There’s just a tremendously friendly community vibe about these events that’s hard to miss.

Last night, my family and I attended the “Salute to America” concert. As usual, it was a wonderful time with several thousand other people.

So amid your celebration of Independence Day (if you’re an American; a number of my readers aren’t), consider taking some time to both engage with our nation’s founding—and unifying—principles.

And regardless of where you find yourself or where you call home, consider taking some time to do something with others, to build community.

Don’t forget to have fun, too—with or without some frozen yogurt.

References and for further reading

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Amitai Etzioni, “Creating Good Communities and Good Societies,” Contemporary Sociology 29, no. 1 (January 2000): 188, https://doi.org/10.2307/2654943.

American Covenant, by Yuval Levin: Link